Amid all the turmoil and gridlock currently roiling in Washington D.C., there is one thing that the U.S. House of Representatives just agreed upon unanimously, and without debate. It was to honor the late and great country music legend Merle Haggard.

On Tuesday (7-11), the House of Representatives voted unanimously to name the Bakersfield post office located at 1730 18th St. after the California country legend. The bill was brought to the floor by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who represents Bakersfield in California’s 23rd district, and is the current House Majority Leader. Merle Haggard passed away on April 6th, 2016.

The excuse was the christening of a post office in Haggard’s hometown of Bakersfield, California. But the underlying reason was to evoke the name and memory of an iconic figure in American culture in the seat of power, and in turn, pay tribute to all the working people that Merle Haggard represented so well in song.

Read and see Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s speech from the House of Representatives floor below.

Mr. Speaker, you can take a look back on American history. You can see figures standing tall who spoke for the everyday working man. Following a long tradition of Whitman and Twain, Merle Haggard was a man who knew America instinctively, because he lived an American life. It wasn’t a life for the movies, but it was all more compelling, because it was all more real. That is the reason they called him the poet of the common man.

Merle Haggard didn’t have it easy. At the height of the Depression, his family searched for opportunity out West. Merle grew up with the little means, and lived with the past mistakes and regrets. So he sang. He sang in “Branded Man” of the stigma of prison, crooning, “I held my head up high, determined I’d rise above the shame. He sang in “Working Man Blues” of the grind of doing his duty to his family. “Working as long as my two hands are fit to use.” And he sang of his roots. Not of power, or wealth, or of status. But of pride of being an Okie from Muskogee—a place of leather boots, football, and Old Glory.

He found success, and more importantly, redemption in the music he shared with his country. Now The Bakersfield Sound changed country music, and it’s a testament to Merle Haggard’s talent. When you listen to his hits, from “Branded Man,” to “Mama Tried,” to “Big City,” to “Working Man Blues,” or even to “Okie From Muskogee,” you not only hear the hardship and wisdom of a well-lived life, but you can hear the roots of so much of the music we still listen to today.

From a man who went from Bakersfield High to San Quentin Prison, to the Country Music Hall of Fame, a building doesn’t seem like much. But I hope when people pass by the Merle Haggard Post Office building in downtown Bakersfield, they will remember an icon of our community, and artist who never backed down, a man whose honesty above his own failings and willingness to pick himself back up inspired music that lifts our spirits, and feeds our souls.

Merle Haggard’s name will live on in this building, but his spirit will live on in his music that calls us to do the best we can every day God gives us. I yield back.

Naw, don’t worry, this hack doesn’t have the balls to do what’s right and repeal O’care. He’s going to help keep the government in healthcare, exactly like Mitch McConnell tells him to do, and continue us down the road to serfdom.

Any further comments not relating to the specific issue broached in this article, and have a majority to do with political polarization of any sort, will be deleted. DON’T TURN MY MUSIC WEBSITE INTO YOU POLITICAL BATTLEFIELD, ASSHOLES!

I love Merle and I appreciate and respect his music more and more as music , in general , and country radio ,in particular , become more and more soul-less and dollar-driven . I found myself quite emotional reading the speech above for many reasons . Certainly for the passing of the man . For the incredible catalogue of timeless music he brought to us and the manner in which he performed and recorded it . For the recognition by way of a govn’t building named for his sake . But I think as much for the passing of a time in music and culture in America and Canada that ,like the Hag, is gone.
God bless Merle Haggard .

Seeing Merle get honored with his name on a federal post office building is heartening, especially in his own hometown. After all, for the last twenty-five years of his life, country radio basically didn’t want much of anything to do with him, even though a lot of the younger generation of “hat acts” (Alan Jackson; Clint Black, etc.) knew, like the rest of us, that he was a living and active legend right up to his passing.

Per Trigger’s wishes, I won’t go political here. But I would point out (maybe redundantly) that he has said a lot of contradictory things about “Okie From Muskogee” and “The Fightin’ Side Of Me” over the last 47 years; and one just has to accept those songs as perhaps how he felt about the state of America during that singular turbulent time in U.S. history, not a definitive lifetime, chiseled-in-stone opinion of anti-war protestors and hippies, PERIOD.

And I would point out that, in 1988, Merle identified Linda Ronstadt, whom he met at a Capitol Records function in L.A. in 1969, and who was a C&W/rock-loving and performing Hippie, as his favorite female artist in any musical genre, So much for him being a right-wing hippie basher.

Merle Haggard’s political legacy is as complicated as America’s. That’s what makes his story so important. Folks could have abstained or dissented against honoring Merle in this way due to the political affiliations he kept at certain times in his career, or the fact that he was a criminal and in prison in the past, or because some people may just not like country music. But everyone unanimously saw the value in honoring Merle Haggard in this way. Yes it’s just naming a post office, but I thought the speech being recorded on the House floor was important. A shame that one of the most polarizing institutions in America could agree it was a good thing to honor Merle Haggard, but some the readers of a website called Saving Country Music have to pick it apart.

Naming Post Offices is the quintessential easy legislation to pass. [In fact, when the political media or and opponent want to denigrate a Congressman as being a do-nothing, they typically say: “He didn’t sponsor any legislation, except for naming a Post Office!”] This type of legislation is generally passed unanimously, as a courtesy to the Congressman from the district who sponsored it.
An honoree would have to be pretty controversial to engender any opposition. I mean, I don’t think we’ll be seeing a “Mike Tyson” Post Office. But Haggard did not do anything really controversial since coming out with “The Fighting Side of Me.” OK, maybe some LGBTQ activist didn’t like “My Own Kind of Hat” and the line about fairies and some civil libertarians didn’t care for “Me and Crippled Soldiers” and its call for banning flag-burning, but Merle didn’t exactly go all Ted Nugent with his politics.

What is the pyramid of human realization? I think it goes you have your stable base at the bottom, the dependable solid workers, then the merchants, warriors, priests, then the sages, bards and archivists of superluminal paradisal time which Merle fell under which is the highest expression of humanity and where the real power is. So it’s not surprising that Merle was given his due, as should be expected by some politician.

If I get too quiet, it’s not that you did something wrong
I’ve just drifted away in the memory of a favorite old country song
I’m not stewing or scheming, I’m not dreaming of some other girl
when my eyes start to glisten, honey listen:
I’m just missing old Merle

Now I’m singing the working man blues
and searching for old swinging doors
and lately I’m thinking of just staying and drinking
wishing all things were just like before
when I catch me that rambling fever
and want to give mean Kern River a whirl
I’m not reminiscing, are you listening?
I’m just missing old Merle

thanks albert, yes, I wrote the words. the melody isn’t exactly the same, but the chord changes are. I was moved by Merle’s passing, it made me pretty quiet for a while. my wife noticed. and I thought the best thing to do would be to be honest about it. I’d tweak those words a little, but in general, she got the message.

have you heard Ben Haggard sing and play? what a fine pleasure it is to hear the Merle in him. same goes for Willie’s son, Lukas. it’s like looking closely at good timber. the same grain is there. that’s a real comfort, to know there’s some continuities in life.

Vince did a great Haggard tribute called “Real Mean Bottle” on his “Next Big Thing CD in the early 2000’s.
I didn’t care for the “Living In A World Without Haggard” tribute that he performed after Merle died.

Nice song by Dale and Ray, and look at all those great musicians in the video! Love Willie and Ben, but it’s impossible not to. Kimberly Murray has a perfect sundress of a voice for honky tonk. Tempo’s a little slow. Who’s nailing Roy Nichols there? Nice.

Nice move. I remember when the legislature in California decided it’d be cool to have a poet laureate. Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt lobbied hard for Merle to get it, particularly because of the Kern River song. Hugh was more of a folk music fan and was late to the Merle party, but very impressed once he heard a few songs. Of course the poet laureate commission picked a bunch of people no one heard of who apparently were unfamiliar with the concept of rhymes.

Merle probably was one of the first real California Poet Laureates regardless of what the legislature said. But a post office is ok too.

The Bakersfield Post Office is nice, but I’d like to see more. What about the Department of Labor Building in the nations capital? It’s already called the Frances Perkins Building, but maybe they could name a wing after Merle.

Merle’s life could make a good movie, but definitely not starring his son Ben.
Acting is actually a profession. You hire an actor for the lead role in a film.
Also, you’d want an actor who can approach the character and the role as something fresh–not someone who had complex relationships with the man and with the other characters in his life and may have personal motivations regarding how to present the character.
Anyway, if Ben Haggard hopes to have a successful career as an artist, I’d think he’d want to present himself as his own man with his own style, not someone who’s literally trying to impersonate Merle Haggard.